For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 16, 2013

Yup, they do that. Our hamster cage had a 3 inch plastic barrier around the bottom of the cage and they still managed to have wood shavings and rodent poop all over everywhere. They also loved taking the shavings up into the Habitrail tubes and making their nests in one of the curves, therefore 1. making the tube impassable and 2. making cleanup much harder (have you ever tried to scrape dried hamster pee from the inside of a three inch curved tube?)I used to love to watch them stuff things into their cheeks. We used to give them strips of paper towel to use in the sleeping nest, and they would stuff a 1 inch by 1 foot piece of paper all the way into one cheek. One of them got found a way out of the cage once and took the time to fill both cheeks with food before leaving the cage and taking up residence in the 2" space between a cupboard and the wall next to it. Don’t think that wasn’t fun to clean up.

That is why we do not own one.

I’m gld we don’t have one.

Ha! Like oiling the wheel ever worked! When I was a small child my older siblings had hamsters, and all the oil in the world didn’t stop that infernal squeaking.

I can still remember that wonderful aroma of cedar shavings however…

Unfortunately my cat does the same thing with the litter in her box.

LOL! And to think my youngest is begging me to bring home the class guinea pig for a weekend. Please, no!

There’s a reason cats eat rodents.

Wait until the hamster figures out how to open his cage. Like my hamsters did.

mmmmm a bigger cage??

Oil doesn’t work for Hamster cages, but wesson takes care of it! Worked for us and my daughter in law. No Hamsters now, the cats like “rodent crunchies” too much.

cute

Oiled the wheel with what? I think that there is a way to oil properly and a way not to do it. For instance….I wouldn’t give it a shot of WD-40 if I were you.

My parakeet learned to mimic the sound of a squeaky wheel. I heard it all night from the hamster and all day from the parakeet.

“I wouldn’t have wanted the little guy in MY kitchen!”My daughter has a cage in her kitchen with two chickens in it! Breathtaking.

I had gerbils they used to eat their plastic wheel

What a mess!

Most animals are too messy! Large parrots can be potty trained (even to go on command/request). When my cockatoo shopped with me she would let me know so I could take her outdoors if she needed to go (or in very large places, like a gem show, I’d take along a folded newspaper and she would wait for me to open it for her- easy to dispose of.

One of my hamsters escaped into the basement. I caught him again when he came back to play on his wheel!

I love Humphrey’s face in this one. I have always admired the way my chinchilla is home wherever she goes, as long as she has her cage. Humphrey looks like he is having a great time.

Used to have a gerbil that did the same thing.

This hamster is morte trouble than it worth

Hope that isn’t his tax returns,

Hamsters are cute but I’d never have another one.They’re too messy and too noisy!

I worked in a mall when some fancy long-haired hamsters got lose from the pet store. They wound up in a classy jewellry store, freaking out the clients who didn’t like rodents in the crystal vases, lol

They are no Tribble at all…

This was why my hamsters were in glass cages!!